It's Like The Start Of A Great Horror Movie....

From the news.com.au front page :



That headline might lead you to believe that a crocodile leapt up and grabbed hold of a helicopter's skid and dragged it to the ground.

But no.

The pilot messed up trying to give his sight-seeing passenger a better look at a crocodile they spotted on mudflats 60kms from Darwin.

If The Crocs Don't Eat You, The Locals Will

Considering the consistent popularity of gruesome horror movies amongst the world's youth, and the lack of tourism campaigns focusing on the more grislier attractions, perhaps the Daily Telegraph is onto something here :



Now there's an advertising campaign to draw in tourists, cannibalistic locals hiding in heritage listed forests and hungry crocs cruising for meaty thighs at resort beaches.

'Australia : Will You Make It Out Alive?'

Two Boys Up A Tree, The Crocodile That Killed Their Friend Waits Below...



This is easily one of the most remarkable crocodile attack and survival stories you will probably ever read.

In December, 2003, three young friends went for a bit of a hoon on their quad bikes near a river in the NT. They got muddy, and went to the river to clean off. Something close to a flash flood hit and the three friends were swept away. One was taken by a crocodile, the others climbed a tree to escape, and spent a long and terrifying night up there while the crocodile that had taken their friend waited for them down below. The rescue of the two survivors is almost as incredible as the story of their survival.

The full story of this real-life horror movie has now been told for the first time :

Four years on, the survivors are getting on with their lives, shielded by family and friends. After a couple of brief statements and a press conference at which the boys, pale and visibly shaken, paid tribute to their mate, none of those involved directly, or indirectly, has since spoken about the tragedy. Crocodile attacks in the Top End of Australia are not uncommon. But there was something in the boys' ordeal that ensured that their story continues to resonate.

The trio spent a raucous, enjoyable day, spraying each other with mud as they roared around on the bikes. At 4.30pm, they went down to the river, to a spot 200 metres downstream from Walkers Ford, parked their bikes just up from the bank, and began to wash their clothes and boots, which were covered in sand and mud. They had noted that the water was fairly high; they thought this was normal for the time of year, but did not realise how much the river was in flood and that a strong tide was coming in.

Shaun's police statement detailed what happened next: "The three of us walked into the water among some stringy trees. The water was running a little bit at this spot... and Brett went out a little farther and was washed away. I don't know if he lost his footing or the current was a bit strong for him. After we saw Brett washed away, both Ashley and I went out after him. Ashley and I caught up to Brett and we both got in front of him as we went with the flow. I was in front, Ashley was next and Brett was at the rear. We were all within arms' reach of each other. It probably took us about 300 metres to catch up with Brett and then we began to look for a place to get out of the river. We all spoke to each other to check that we were all right. There was no real panic at this stage."

The three young men, caught in the current, travelled for 700m-1km as they looked for a way to get back to dry land. Shaun's police statement recounts the next part of the story: "Ashley yelled out, 'Croc, croc, I'm not joking, there's a fucking croc. Head for a tree, get out of the water.' I didn't see a croc, but swam to the nearest tree and climbed up into the first fork. I helped pull Ashley up into the same tree. We looked around for Brett and called his name out. I didn't see Brett anywhere or hear him call out. I didn't hear a call or a splash or anything. It wasn't very long after we got into the tree, maybe two minutes later, that I saw a croc pop up with Brett in his jaws. Brett wasn't moving, he was lying face down in the water and the croc was gripping him by the left shoulder. I know it was Brett because he was wearing his O'Neill riding gear, which was mainly yellow with black and white stripes. The croc was only about five metres away from us at the time. It was only a couple of minutes that the croc remained looking around at us. It went under the water with Brett and swam away. I did not see Brett again."

The two survivors described the crocodile as "big, black and aggressive" and around four metres long. Five minutes later, it returned and remained at the foot of the tree, bobbing up intermittently. The traumatised teenagers spent the night in the tree, keeping each other awake. Shaun was in the second fork of the tree, Ashley in the third. Just on nightfall, Shaun tried to move higher up and, in a heart-stopping moment, fell into the water. Terrified, he scrambled out again within seconds.

As night closed around them and the temperature dropped, Ashley moved down to the second fork so the two friends could huddle together and try to keep warm. Throughout the long night they didn't say much, apart from checking the other was all right. "Because we couldn't see each other, because it was dark, I had my hand on Ashley's foot," Shaun said later. "Whenever we moved, we'd say, 'I'm moving', and just check in on each other and make sure we weren't going to sleep. We were worn out from hanging on to the little tree. The tree was swaying all night because there was a lot of wind and rain."

**********************

"It's something [the boys] will never completely recover from," Sgt Casey says, "but they're doing well and trying to get on with their lives."

Now in their mid-20s, Shaun and Ashley still live locally. Shaun works for his family's business and one of his jobs is cleaning swimming pools. He tells customers that if they have any blow-up croc toys in their pools to make sure they are out of sight before he arrives.

Ashley took the longest to get over what happened, and is said to be still very affected by the ordeal. Brett's parents are now divorced and both moved away after their son's death.

Every year, however, Brett's family, Ashley, Shaun and their friends return to the spot where he died to remember him. "It's a nice occasion, obviously very sombre and emotional," Casey says.

"Everybody arrives in their cars and goes down to the river to where he disappeared. Some people say a few words or maybe there's some music. Afterwards we have a barbecue and a couple of drinks in his honour."

Definitely worth reading this story in full, here.

Shark Vs Crocodile - Croc Wins



The remote Daly River in the Northern Territory is one of the last truly stunning untouched wildernesses left in the world, like most of of the NT. Spend enough time up there, and you you'll see things nobody would ever believe, unless you catch it on camera.

Which is exactly what fisherman Indrek Urvet managed to do, when he saw a huge 13 foot long saltwater crocodile explode out of the river, with a live bull shark in its jaws.

According to this story, Urvet managed to snap off a few unbelievable photos like the one above, before "Suddenly the croc saw me. He turned around and came shooting towards me.”

Mr Urvet, who said that fishermen on the river frequently lost their catch to the bull sharks before they could reel it in, retreated and watched from a safer distance as the crocodile devoured the metre-long shark.

Bull sharks, which grow to 3.5m, are known to be highly aggressive and, unlike other marine sharks, can dwell for extended periods in both fresh and saltwater.

The Northern Territory : you won't believe it, until you see it.

Killer Crocodile Movies Set To Terrify

All photos by Darryl Mason, Northern Territory, August 2006


The banks of the East Alligator river, in the Northern Territory, were feet thick with a quicksand-like mud when we visited the area last year. The mud is a trap in itself. Once you step into it, it could suck you into your knees and then h0ld you in place until this 10 foot long monster is ready for a feed. Never, ever, get out of the boat.


The director of Wolf Creek, Greg McLean, is set to scare ten kinds of hell out of tourists and backpackers all over again with his new film, Rogue.

But instead of a shockingly cruel serial killer roaming the outback picking up unwary touros, this time McLean deposits his human cast deep inside the ancient, unforgiving realm of Australian crocodile country.

It's been a long time between feasts for Australian horror movies fans wanting to dine out on a homegrown monster movie, but this year we're going to get at least two, and both deal with killer crocodiles hunting down humans.

The second crocodile thriller is called Black Water, and while Rogue is a $30 million top-cast studio effort, with more than $6 million of the budget devoted to special effects, Black Water barely cost $1 million, and its director promises he's followed the Stephen King edict : the less you show of the monster, the scarier it can be.


Even without his front legs (bitten off during fighting), this crocodile has thrived in a muddy river in the Northern Territory for decades.

As this excellent feature from 'The Australian' explains, Rogue and Black Water are polar opposites when it comes to budgets, special effects, locations and cast, but both promise plenty of chills when they hit cinema screens in the second half of 2007.

Black Water was filmed amongst the mangroves of Georges River, south of Sydney, while Rogue goes deep into crocodile territory in the Katherine Gorge, in the Northern Territory.

The Wolf Creek director said Rogue will be "an old-fashioned horror film". He likens his film to classics like Jaws and Alien, which were monster movies, but were more focused on the characters thrust into the monster's path than just scaring the audience with gore and shocks.

Rogue will show what happens to a boatload of tourists who wind up marooned on a river island as the tide rises and the crocodiles come for a feed.

Black Water, meanwhile, will see a bunch of mates on a fishing trip getting chased up a tree by crocodiles, where they are then stuck for most of the rest of the movie - except for those devoured by crocodiles, who can actually climb trees if they really want to get you.

Can't wait. Don't know about the swamps of the Georges River, but Katherine Gorge and Kakadu (where Rogue was also reportedly filmed) are stunningly beautiful, but also stunningly harsh environments where humans are the least likely to survive when it comes to squaring off against the crocodiles.

If two Australian crocodile horror-thrillers can do some decent box office business, we might get to see more Australian horror movies filling Australian screens. It will be about time.

Young Australians don't spend tens of millions of dollars a year at the cinema watching the endless slew of terribly shit American horror movies because they like crap. They like horror movies. If Australian producers and directors don't make them, they'll watch dirge like Hostel and The Hitcher and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes for want of a thrill and a scare.

Maybe we'll see a new genre of Australian horror movies based around our most fearsome and deadly wildlife.

I look forward to a horror movie about Japanese tourists who are accidentally locked inside a koala park and then have to survive the night while being hunted by eucalyptus-crazed koalas in full drop-bear fury.

For wannabe horror movie makers, some good advice from Wolf Creek/Rogue director McLean in The Australian story, (excerpts) :

"There has to be an idea of genius in there to warrant people seeing a low-budget film instead of a $30 million or $40million movie," says Mclean, who made Wolf Creek for $1.4 million and was rewarded when the Weinsteins spent $7.5million on distribution rights for several countries.

"We had a one-in-a-million shot of being noticed. It had to be so much better structured, acted, and more realistic than all the other horror films out there," he says. "It was designed to reverse audience expectations and generate a feeling of freshness to make them think they had not seen anything like this before.

"Low-budget filmmaking should be a place where people experiment and break rules, not make low-budget versions of boring movies ... It has to be something people have never seen before or something executed so brilliantly and with such precision that it's worth seeing."

Seconds before he slammed his huge head into the tinnie, this six foot long crocodile near Katherine Gorge appeared to be smiling at us.

Crocodile 'Catches" Man On The Run For Police

Deputise That Croc

Every time the police got close to the man's house, he would bolt into long grass on the edge of a crocodile infested Daly River, south of Darwin.

The police wanted to talk to the man about why he had, allegedly, breached his bail conditions.

But he always saw them coming, and he always pulled off the long grass disappearing act.

The police tried again last night, around 8pm, and again the man bolted to the riverbank. The police searched for him in the long grass, but no luck.

A few hours later, the man re-appeared at a neighbour's house. He had wounds to his head and one hand, the blood flowed.

He claimed he had been attacked and bitten on the head by a crocodile.

He is now in Darwin hospital.

The police can see the "funny side" of the attack.

Acting Police Superintendent Tony Fuller told ABC Radio the police wouldn't mind hearing from the crocodile. They might even have a job for it :

"The crocodile, we want to hire the crocodile...he catches them for us doesn't he?" he said.

Authorities say the man's injuries are not serious and he is in a stable condition.